The opposition Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) would propose a revised special defense budget bill, TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said yesterday, following his return from meetings with US government officials in Washington.
Speaking at the TPP headquarters after returning to Taiwan yesterday morning, Huang said he met with US trade, defense and state department officials during a whirlwind visit to the US capital on Monday.
He did not mention the names of the US officials he met, and said that the American Institute in Taiwan asked him not to disclose the content of their meetings.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The TPP delegation has expressed its reservations about the government’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.52 billion) special defense budget, including the “lack of clarity” about how the money would be spent, Huang said.
Huang was referring to the special defense budget proposed by the Cabinet on Nov. 27 last year to fund weapons procurement and joint development programs with the US from this year to 2033.
A special budget is funding outside of the central government’s general budget (which already includes defense spending) that is financed by issuing debt.
Huang said he told US officials that the legislature of a democratic country like Taiwan could not accept reviewing a budget with unclear or unknown spending items, and that the US “understood and agreed with” his concerns.
A “relatively high proportion” of the proposed budget’s NT$1.25 trillion would not be allotted to US arms purchases, Huang said, without elaborating.
To date, the TPP and the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have teamed up six times to block review of the bill in the legislature.
Asked by reporters if his position on the budget had changed after visiting the US, Huang said his opposition to the bill had in fact become stronger.
“Taiwan needs to strengthen its defense, but the budget can’t be wasted or treated like spoils in the eyes of arms dealers or middlemen,” he said.
The TPP would wait to hear a closed legislative committee briefing on the special budget next week by the Ministry of National Defense, after which it would propose its own version of the bill, Huang said.
Asked if the TPP budget would be smaller than the government’s and if it had received backing from the US, Huang said it did not require consent from the US, as Taiwan and the US each have their own respective positions.
As for the size of the TPP’s budget proposal, Huang said it was too early to say, as it would be based on information from the ministry’s report on the budget next week.
Meanwhile, the New York Times on Monday reported that the US and Taiwan are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent, which prompted speculation on whether Huang would discuss the tariff issue during his US trip.
Huang said the TPP delegation visited the Office of the US Trade Representative, but he only found out that negotiations regarding the tariff had basically been settled before his arrival.
“We were also quite shocked,” he said about when he realized that the terms had been decided.
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